For every $k \geq 3$, we determine the order of growth, up to polylogarithmic factors, of the number of orientations of the binomial random graph containing no directed cycle of length $k$. This solves a conjecture of Kohayakawa, Morris and the last two authors.
In this short note we determine the maximum number, over all $n$-vertex graphs $G$, of orientations of $G$ containing no strongly connected cycle $C_{2k+1}$. This answers a part of a recent question of Araujo, Botler and Mota.
Let D(n,p) be the random directed graph on n vertices where each of the n(n-1) possible arcs is present independently with probability p. A celebrated result of Frieze shows that if $p\ge(\log n+ω(1))/n$ then D(n,p) typically has a directed Hamilton cycle, and this is best possible. In this paper, we obtain a strengthening of this result, showing that under the same condition, the number of directed Hamilton cycles in D(n,p) is typically $n!(p(1+o(1)))^{n}$. We also prove a hitting-time version of this statement, showing that in the random directed graph process, as soon as every vertex has in…
A Hamilton cycle in a digraph is a cycle that passes through all the vertices, where all the arcs are oriented in the same direction. The problem of finding Hamilton cycles in directed graphs is well studied and is known to be hard. One of the main reasons for this, is that there is no general tool for finding Hamilton cycles in directed graphs comparable to the so called Pos?a `rotation-extension' technique for the undirected analogue. Let ${\mathcal D}(n,p)$ denote the random digraph on vertex set $[n]$, obtained by adding each directed edge independently with probability $p$. Here, we prese…
Parking functions, classically defined in terms of cars with preferred parking spots on a directed path attempting to park there, arise in many combinatorial situations and have seen various generalizations. In particular, parking functions have been defined for general digraphs, which yields many more enumeration problems. For example, in a directed tree whose edges are orientated away from the root, it is unknown in general how the number of parking functions on it changes once the orientation is reversed, even in the case when the tree is a star. We show that this orientation reversal resul…
We show that the 4-variable generating function of certain orientation related parameters of an ordered oriented matroid is the evaluation at (x + u, y+v) of its Tutte polynomial. This evaluation contains as special cases the counting of regions in hyperplane arrangements and of acyclic orientations in graphs. Several new 2-variable expansions of the Tutte polynomial of an oriented matroid follow as corollaries. This result hold more generally for oriented matroid perspectives, with specific special cases the counting of bounded regions in hyperplane arrangements or of bipolar acyclic orientat…
The line graph LG of a directed graph G has a vertex for every edge of G and an edge for every path of length 2 in G. In 1967, Knuth used the Matrix-Tree Theorem to prove a formula for the number of spanning trees of LG, and he asked for a bijective proof. In this paper, we give a bijective proof of a generating function identity due to Levine which generalizes Knuth's formula. As a result of this proof we find a bijection between binary de Bruijn sequences of degree n and binary sequences of length 2^{n-1}. Finally, we determine the critical groups of all the Kautz graphs and de Bruijn graphs…
The goal of this short paper to advertise the method of gauge transformations (aka holographic reduction, reparametrization) that is well-known in statistical physics and computer science, but less known in combinatorics. As an application of it we give a new proof of a theorem of A. Schrijver asserting that the number of Eulerian orientations of a $d$--regular graph on $n$ vertices with even $d$ is at least $\left(\frac{\binom{d}{d/2}}{2^{d/2}}\right)^n$. We also show that a $d$--regular graph with even $d$ has always at least as many Eulerian orientations as $(d/2)$--regular subgraphs.
In this paper we study the structure of $k$-transitive closures of directed paths and formulate several properties. Concept of $k$-transitive orientation generalize the traditional concept of transitive orientation of a graph.
A sharp asymptotic formula for the number of strongly connected digraphs on $n$ labelled vertices with $m$ arcs, under a condition $m-n\to\infty$, $m=O(n)$, is obtained; this solves a problem posed by Wright back in $1977$. Our formula is a counterpart of a classic asymptotic formula, due to Bender, Canfield and McKay, for the total number of connected undirected graphs on $n$ vertices with $m$ edges. A key ingredient of their proof was a recurrence equation for the connected graphs count due to Wright. No analogue of Wright's recurrence seems to exist for digraphs. In a previous paper with Ni…
We count orientations of $G(n,p)$ avoiding certain classes of oriented graphs. In particular, we study $T_r(n,p)$, the number of orientations of the binomial random graph $G(n,p)$ in which every copy of $K_r$ is transitive, and $S_r(n,p)$, the number of orientations of $G(n,p)$ containing no strongly connected copy of $K_r$. We give the correct order of growth of $\log T_r(n,p)$ and $\log S_r(n,p)$ up to polylogarithmic factors; for orientations with no cyclic triangle, this significantly improves a result of Allen, Kohayakawa, Mota and Parente. We also discuss the problem for a single forbidd…
A bijection $Φ$ is presented between plane bipolar orientations with prescribed numbers of vertices and faces, and non-intersecting triples of upright lattice paths with prescribed extremities. This yields a combinatorial proof of the following formula due to R. Baxter for the number $Θ_{ij}$ of plane bipolar orientations with $i$ non-polar vertices and $j$ inner faces: $Θ_{ij}=2\frac{(i+j)!(i+j+1)!(i+j+2)!}{i!(i+1)!(i+2)!j!(j+1)!(j+2)!}$. In addition, it is shown that $Φ$ specializes into the bijection of Bernardi and Bonichon between Schnyder woods and non-crossing pairs of Dyck words.
F-nomial coefficients encompass among others well-known binomial coefficients or Gaussian coefficients that count subsets of finite set and subspaces of finite vector space respectively. Here, the so called F-cobweb tiling sequences N(a) are considered. For such specific sequences a new interpretation with respect to Kwasniewski general combinatorial interpretation of F-nomial coefficients is unearhed. Namely, for tiling sequences F = N(a)$ the F-nomial coefficients are equal to the number of labeled special bipartite multigraphs denoted here as a-multigraphs G(a,n,k). An explicit relation bet…
Inspired by the paper of Bonichon, Bousquet-Mélou, Dorbec and Pennarun, we give a system of functional equations which characterise the ordinary generating function, $U(x),$ for the number of planar Eulerian orientations counted by edges. We also characterise the ogf $A(x)$, for 4-valent planar Eulerian orientations counted by vertices in a similar way. The latter problem is equivalent to the 6-vertex problem on a random lattice, widely studied in mathematical physics. While unable to solve these functional equations, they immediately provide polynomial-time algorithms for computing the coeffi…
In 1960, Ghouila-Houri extended Dirac's theorem to directed graphs by proving that if D is a directed graph on n vertices with minimum out-degree and in-degree at least n/2 (i.e. minimum semi-degree at least n/2), then D contains a directed Hamiltonian cycle. Of course there are other orientations of a cycle in a directed graph and it is not clear that the semi-degree threshold for the directed Hamiltonian cycle is the same as the semi-degree threshold for some other orientation. In 1980, Grant initiated the problem of determining the minimum semi-degree threshold for the anti-directed Hamilto…
In 1974, Erdős posed the following problem. Given an oriented graph $H$, determine or estimate the maximum possible number of $H$-free orientations of an $n$-vertex graph. When $H$ is a tournament, the answer was determined precisely for sufficiently large $n$ by Alon and Yuster. In general, when the underlying undirected graph of $H$ contains a cycle, one can obtain accurate bounds by combining an observation of Kozma and Moran with celebrated results on the number of $F$-free graphs. As the main contribution of the paper, we resolve all remaining cases in an asymptotic sense, thereby giving …
Given a 0-1 square matrix A, when can some of the 1's be changed to -1's in such a way that the permanent of A equals the determinant of the modified matrix? When does a real square matrix have the property that every real matrix with the same sign pattern (that is, the corresponding entries either have the same sign or are both zero) is nonsingular? When is a hypergraph with n vertices and n hyperedges minimally nonbipartite? When does a bipartite graph have a "Pfaffian orientation"? Given a digraph, does it have no directed circuit of even length? Given a digraph, does it have a subdivision …
For every $n\in\mathbb N$ we construct a finite graph $G$ such that every orientation $\vec G$ of $G$ contains an isometric copy of any oriented tree on $n$ vertices, and evaluate the smallest possible cardinality of $G$. On the other hand, we prove that every graph $G$ admits an orientation containing no directed $ω$-paths of infinite diameter.
This paper is devoted to Wiener index of directed graphs, more precisely of directed grids. The grid $G_{m,n}$ is the Cartesian product $P_m\Box P_n$ of paths on $m$ and $n$ vertices, and in a particular case when $m=2$, it is a called the ladder graph $L_n$. Kraner Šumenjak et al. proved that the maximum Wiener index of a digraph, which is obtained by orienting the edges of $L_n$, is obtained when all layers isomorphic to one factor are directed paths directed in the same way except one (corresponding to an endvertex of the other factor) which is a directed path directed in the opposite way. …
Alon and Yuster proved that the number of orientations of any $n$-vertex graph in which every $K_3$ is transitively oriented is at most $2^{\lfloor n^2/4\rfloor}$ for $n \geq 10^4$ and conjectured that the precise lower bound on $n$ should be $n \geq 8$. We confirm their conjecture and, additionally, characterize the extremal families by showing that the balanced complete bipartite graph with $n$ vertices is the only $n$-vertex graph for which there are exactly $2^{\lfloor n^2/4\rfloor}$ such orientations.
Fix an oriented graph H, and let G be a graph with bounded clique number and very large chromatic number. If we somehow orient its edges, must there be an induced subdigraph isomorphic to H? Kierstead and Rodl raised this question for two specific kinds of digraph H: the three-edge path, with the first and last edges both directed towards the interior; and stars (with many edges directed out and many directed in). Aboulker et al subsequently conjectured that the answer is affirmative in both cases. We give affirmative answers to both questions.
Unique-sink orientations (USOs) are an abstract class of orientations of the n-cube graph. We consider some classes of USOs that are of interest in connection with the linear complementarity problem. We summarise old and show new lower and upper bounds on the sizes of some such classes. Furthermore, we provide a characterisation of K-matrices in terms of their corresponding USOs.
The chromatic polynomial $P(G,x)$ of a graph $G$ of order $n$ can be expressed as $\sum\limits_{i=1}^n(-1)^{n-i}a_{i}x^i$, where $a_i$ is interpreted as the number of broken-cycle free spanning subgraphs of $G$ with exactly $i$ components. The parameter $ε(G)=\sum\limits_{i=1}^n (n-i)a_i/\sum\limits_{i=1}^n a_i$ is the mean size of a broken-cycle-free spanning subgraph of $G$. In this article, we confirm and strengthen a conjecture proposed by Lundow and Markström in 2006 that $ε(T_n)< ε(G)<ε(K_n)$ holds for any connected graph $G$ of order $n$ which is neither the complete graph $K_n$ nor a t…
For a graph G, the generating function of rooted forests, counted by the number of connected components, can be expressed in terms of the eigenvalues of the graph Laplacian. We generalize this result from graphs to cell complexes of arbitrary dimension. This requires generalizing the notion of rooted forest to higher dimension. We also introduce orientations of higher dimensional rooted trees and forests. These orientations are discrete vector fields which lead to open questions concerning expressing homological quantities combinatorially.
Let $S_k(n)$ be the maximum number of orientations of an $n$-vertex graph $G$ in which no copy of $K_k$ is strongly connected. For all integers $n$, $k\geq 4$ where $n\geq 5$ or $k\geq 5$, we prove that $S_k(n) = 2^{t_{k-1}(n)}$, where $t_{k-1}(n)$ is the number of edges of the $n$-vertex $(k-1)$-partite Turán graph $T_{k-1}(n)$, and that $T_{k-1}(n)$ is the only $n$-vertex graph with this number of orientations. Furthermore, $S_4(4) = 40$ and this maximality is achieved only by $K_4$.
The number of distinct maps (pre-maps) with a single vertex and valence $d$ is computed for any value of $d$. The types of maps (pre-maps) that we consider depend on whether the underlaying graph (pre-graph) is signed or unsigned and directed or undirected.
Say a digraph is k-free if it has no directed cycles of length at most k, for positive integers k. Thomasse conjectured that the number of induced 3-vertex directed paths in a simple 2-free digraph on n vertices is at most (n-1)n(n+1)/15. We present an unpublished result of Bondy proving that there are at most 2n^3/25 such paths, and prove that for the class of circular interval digraphs, an upper bound of n^3/16 holds. We also study the problem of bounding the number of (non-induced) 4-vertex paths in 3-free digraphs. We show an upper bound of 4n^4/75 using Bondy's result for Thomasse's conje…
Consider the set of all digraphs on $[N]$ with $M$ edges, whose minimum in-degree and minimum out-degree are at least $k_1$ and $k_2$ respectively. For $k:=\min\{k_1,k_2\}\ge 2$ and $M/N>\max\{k_1,k_2\}$, $M=Θ(N)$, we show that, among those digraphs, the fraction of $k$-strongly connected digraphs is $1-O\bigl(N^{-(k-1)})$. Earlier with Dan Poole we identified a sharp edge-density threshold $c^*(k_1,k_2)$ for birth of a giant $(k_1,k_2)$-core in the random digraph $D(n,m=[cn])$. Combining the claims, for $c>c^*(k_1,k_2)$ with probability $1-O\bigl(N^{-(k-1)})$ the giant $(k_1,k_2)$-core exists…
Linear extensions and directed clique counts via modular partitions
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics（马克斯·普朗克分子细胞生物学与遗传学研究所）；Center for Systems Biology（系统生物学中心）；SISSA（的里雅斯特高等研究学院）；Nottingham Trent University（诺丁汉特伦特大学）
Let $\overrightarrow{P_k}$ and $\overrightarrow{C_k}$ denote the directed path and the directed cycle of order $k$, respectively. In this paper, we determine the precise maximum size of $\overrightarrow{P_k}$-free digraphs of order $n$ as well as the extremal digraphs attaining the maximum size for large $n$. For all $n$, we also determine the precise maximum size of $\overrightarrow{C_k}$-free digraphs of order $n$ as well as the extremal digraphs attaining the maximum size. In addition, Huang and Lyu [\textit{Discrete Math. 343(5) 2020}] characterized the extremal digraphs avoiding an orient…
We consider directed weighted graphs and define various families of path counting functions. Our main results are explicit formulas for the main term of the asymptotic growth rate of these counting functions, under some irrationality assumptions on the lengths of all closed orbits on the graph. In addition we assign transition probabilities to such graphs and compute statistics of the corresponding random walks. Some examples and applications are reviewed.
Juggling patterns can be described by a closed walk in a (directed) state graph, where each vertex (or state) is a landing pattern for the balls and directed edges connect states that can occur consecutively. The number of such patterns of length $n$ is well known, but a long-standing problem is to count the number of prime juggling patterns (those juggling patterns corresponding to cycles in the state graph). For the case of $b=2$ balls we give an expression for the number of prime juggling patterns of length $n$ by establishing a connection with partitions of $n$ into distinct parts. From th…
Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) can be characterised as directed graphs whose strongly connected components are isolated vertices. Using this restriction on the strong components, we discover that when $m = cn$, where $m$ is the number of directed edges, $n$ is the number of vertices, and $c < 1$, the asymptotic probability that a random digraph is acyclic is an explicit function $p(c)$, such that $p(0) = 1$ and $p(1) = 0$. When $m = n(1 + μn^{-1/3})$, the asymptotic behaviour changes, and the probability that a digraph is acyclic becomes $n^{-1/3} C(μ)$, where $C(μ)$ is an explicit function of…
Classical parking functions can be defined in terms of drivers with preferred parking spaces searching a linear parking lot for an open parking spot. We may consider this linear parking lot as a collection of $n$ vertices (parking spots) arranged in a directed path. We generalize this notion to allow for more complicated "parking lots" and define parking functions on arbitrary directed graphs. We then consider a relationship proved by Lackner and Panholzer between parking functions on trees and "mapping digraphs" and we show that a similar relationship holds when edge orientations are reversed…
It is a classical fact that the number of vertices of the graphical zonotope $Z_Γ$ is equal to the number of acyclic orientations of a graph $Γ$. We show that the $f$-polynomial of $Z_Γ$ is obtained as the principal specialization of the $q$-analog of the chromatic symmetric function of $Γ$.
The active bijection forms a package of results studied by the authors in a series of papers in oriented matroids. The present paper is intended to state the main results in the particular case, and more widespread language, of graphs. We associate any directed graph, defined on a linearly ordered set of edges, with one particular of its spanning trees, which we call its active spanning tree. For any graph on a linearly ordered set of edges, this yields a surjective mapping from orientations onto spanning trees, which preserves activities (for orientations in the sense of Las Vergnas, for span…
Let $D$ be a strongly connected oriented graph with vertex-set $V$ and arc-set $A$. The distance from a vertex $u$ to another vertex $v$, $d(u,v)$ is the minimum length of oriented paths from $u$ to $v$. Suppose $B=\{b_1,b_2,b_3,...b_k\}$ is a nonempty ordered subset of $V$. The representation of a vertex $v$ with respect to $B$, $r(v|B)$, is defined as a vector $(d(v,b_1), d(v,b_2), ..., d(v,b_k))$. If any two distinct vertices $u,v$ satisfy $r(u|B)\neq r(v|B)$, then $B$ is said to be a resolving set of $D$. If the cardinality of $B$ is minimum then $B$ is said to be a basis of $D$ and the ca…
The complete symmetric directed graph of order $v$, denoted $K_{v}^*$, is the directed graph on $v$ vertices that contains both arcs $(x,y)$ and $(y,x)$ for each pair of distinct vertices $x$ and $y$. For a given directed graph, $D$, the set of all $v$ for which $K_{v}^*$ admits a $D$-decomposition is called the spectrum of $D$. There are 10 non-isomorphic orientations of a $7$-cycle (heptagon). In this paper, we completely settled the spectrum problem for each of the oriented heptagons.
In this paper we initialize the study of independent domination in directed graphs. We show that an independent dominating set of an orientation of a graph is also an independent dominating set of the underlying graph, but that the converse is not true in general. We then prove existence and uniqueness theorems for several classes of digraphs including orientations of complete graphs, paths, trees, DAGs, cycles, and bipartite graphs. We also provide the idomatic number for special cases of some of these families of digraphs.
For distinct vertices $u$ and $v$ in a graph $G$, the {\em connectivity} between $u$ and $v$, denoted $κ_G(u,v)$, is the maximum number of internally disjoint $u$--$v$ paths in $G$. The {\em average connectivity} of $G$, denoted $\overlineκ(G),$ is the average of $κ_G(u,v)$ taken over all unordered pairs of distinct vertices $u,v$ of $G$. Analogously, for a directed graph $D$, the {\em connectivity} from $u$ to $v$, denoted $κ_D(u,v)$, is the maximum number of internally disjoint directed $u$--$v$ paths in $D$. The {\em average connectivity} of $D$, denoted $\overlineκ(D)$, is the average of $…
A dominating set of a graph $G$ is a set of vertices that contains at least one endpoint of every edge on the graph. The domination number of $G$ is the order of a minimum dominating set of $G$. The $(t,r)$ broadcast domination is a generalization of domination in which a set of broadcasting vertices emits signals of strength $t$ that decrease by 1 as they traverse each edge, and we require that every vertex in the graph receives a cumulative signal of at least $r$ from its set of broadcasting neighbors. In this paper, we extend the study of $(t,r)$ broadcast domination to directed graphs. Our…
Since counting subgraphs in general graphs is, by and large, a computationally demanding problem, it is natural to try and design fast algorithms for restricted families of graphs. One such family that has been extensively studied is that of graphs of bounded degeneracy (e.g., planar graphs). This line of work, which started in the early 80's, culminated in a recent work of Gishboliner et al., which highlighted the importance of the task of counting homomorphic copies of cycles (i.e., cyclic walks) in graphs of bounded degeneracy. Our main result in this paper is a surprisingly tight relation …
For families of 4-regular directed circulant graphs with $n$ vertices, we count the number of primitive periodic orbits of length up to at least $n$. The relevant counting techniques are then extended to count the number of primitive pseudo orbits (sets of distinct primitive periodic orbits) of length up to at least $n$ that lack self-intersections, or that self-intersect only at individual vertices repeated exactly twice (2-encounters of length zero), for two particular families of 4-regular directed circulant graphs. We then regard these two families of graphs as families of quantum graphs a…
Combinatorial classes T that are recursively defined using combinations of the standard multiset, sequence, directed cycle and cycle constructions, and their restrictions, have generating series T(z) with a positive radius of convergence; for most of these a simple test can be used to quickly show that the form of the asymptotics is the same as that for the class of rooted trees: C ρ^{-n} n^{-3/2} where ρis the radius of convergence of T.
